August 08, 2025
Seasons
For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven.
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1
Everywhere I have lived has seasons. I assume the same is for you. However, the same four seasons look very differently depending where you are in the world. Growing up in “God’s Country” we had a delightful springs, summers, and falls. But in winter you paid your dues. When Buffalo, New York experienced the “Blizzard of 77,” Bradford, Pennsylvania had it worse, as we often did. But if you like cold, snow, and “snow day vacations,” as I did and do, then it was great all year around. Yet my winters in southern California were more like a rainy stretch of autumn back in the Allegheny Mountains than what I thought of as winter. June and July in SoCal are often very temperate, but August and September tended to be when the heat waves came, often breaking 100° F. Seasons express themselves differently in different parts of the world.
Having lived in Seattle for over 4 years now, I have come to understand the distinct nature of each season in the Pacific Northwest. Though I was warned of the “Big Dark” that so defines our winters, I seemed to have been inoculated by its affects from a school year spent in Prince Albert, SK Canada. There, when the winter solstice approached, the sun would come up about 10:00 am and go down at about 2:00 pm. Still, the year I was there we also had an unusually large snow fall, so the ground was continually white making it seem less dark. Please remember, I do like winter.
I didn’t spend summer in Prince Albert, though. So the late night sun, which has been exclusively the novelty of visiting Sweden around Midsomer prior, is now part of my everyday life in summer. These long, sunny days bring back many memories of summer from my younger days that seemed perpetually energize me. Here in Seattle, our gorgeous sunny, summer days surrounded by our beautiful mountains and bodies of water bring a renewed vitality to our days—or at least mine.
Sometimes now when I wake up to a splendid summer day, memories come flooding back. One of my favorite summer memories was biking with my friends on the oil lease roads on the hills surrounding our city, crisscrossing the hills like latticework. The grind of the uphills was more than compensated for by the thrill of the downhills. But there was more: baseball, whiffle ball, basketball, swimming, tennis; and connected to them all was hanging out with friends. And there were places: Kinzua beach (created by Kinzua dam), Lake Chautauqua (and camp Mission Meadows), and Allegheny State Park. Maybe my list kindles memories for you that this summer has not yet ignited?
But we also inhabit seasons, literally embodying them. We live through many seasons of life. But where the annual seasons we experience repeat, returning year after year, we experience them differently through the particular season of life we are embodying. When I hold my granddaughter, I think of all the summer fun she will have in the years ahead, along with the delights each season will hold for her. I thought about that for all my children before their first birthdays. But it is a different experience for me now being a grandfather.
As we celebrate the summer as it makes (I hope!) a slow turn into autumn, I invite you to pray for our church are we turn from the rhythms of summer to fall with its different opportunities and pace. Pray for those who are involved in planning our formation opportunities for all ages, that we might tend well to not only each season of life, but each season of faith, resourcing people wherever they are in their walk with God. Might we invite all people to grow season by season, closer and closer to God. Might we discern what is appropriate and prudent for every season we experience—our annual seasons, our time of life, and our stage of faith—and steward well the precious quality of every moment of life.
Whatever your age may be, go make some more summer memories. It is that season and time.
With thanks to God for these glorious summer days,
~ Pastor Todd
P.S. I will be away for the next two weeks, from 8/11-8/24, some of that time spent back in God’s Country.